Regarding this fact:

Those areas are ethnically and politically linked to southern Afghanistan, which has seen a resurgence of guerrilla violence.

There are two reasons why this is true. First reason -- the treaty that established the border between Afghanistan and India, (before Pakistan existed) was drawn with little any regard for tribal territory. That was typical colonialist boo-boo that we see all over Africa as well.

Then along came the royal Pushtun prince Mohammed Daoud, who dreamed of reclaiming the north of Pakistan for Afghanistan and renaming the whole thing Pushtunistan.

Daoud took over in a bloodless coup in April 1973. Declassified documents show that the Nixon State Dept. was warned in advance about the coup and helped get the King out of the country so the coup could happen.

(That's an interesting story by the way. According to the State Dept. documents, the King was hit in the face with a volleyball and suffered a hematoma. Some American doctor working at the Noor Eye Clinic told him his hematoma needed special treatment in an Italian hospital, and off he flew.)

So Daoud takes over. He's officially a modernizer with state socialist leanings with deep concern for women's rights and close ties with the Soviet Union.

Except his real obsession was Pushtuntistan. That obsession is what came between Daoud and the Soviet government and helped lead to Daoud's demise in a very non-bloodless coup in 1978.

Daoud's modernization program for Afghanistan also fell victim to his obsession with Pushtunistan. Instead of making gradual changes and bringing the population on board through education and incentives, he threw everyone in prison who disagreed with him.

His government was so hostile and repressive towards mullahs and religious Pushtuns that many of them MOVED ACROSS THE BORDER INTO NORTHERN PAKISTAN, conveniently strengthening Daoud's claim that northern Pakistan was part of a Pushtun homeland and needed to be returned to Afghanistan.

Even more religious Pushtuns were driven across the border into Pakistan after the Red Army showed up in 1979.

And then when we started bombing, well, unfortunately, I think we added to the problem as well.

If you honestly miss the newspaper then you could have run to a newsstand and bought one in the time it took you to wallow your self-indulgent pseudo-nostalgia online.

On some days it sounds to me like at least 20% of the people who read Salon display signs of Asperger's.

Several of the letters to Cary have described problems that sound like the same problems that my own Asperger's has caused me.

This kind of problem -- being unable to say no to a stranger - is described in "Asperger's and Girls."

Women with Asperger's are often preyed upon by aggressive people, especially by men. These kinds of men can often tell who we are and target us on purpose, because we tend to be idealistic about people and hence are less suspicious and more open and honest with strangers than we really should be.

We can be like children sometimes.

I'm not claiming to diagnose the LW, because obviously that takes a skilled professional.

But I think she should consult with a professional about this and see if Asperger's is mentioned by the professional.

A diagnosis like that could explain to her why she trusts complete strangers so much and why she has so much trouble defending her personal boundaries against people determined to annihilate them.

It's a shocking vision of what a life can look like when its narration is taken out of the hands of the person living it.

So tell me again about that full body cosmetic surgery that you claim cost Demi Moore $130,000.

You didn't get that story from Demi, did you? No, you got it from some unverifiable source and you never even bothered to check the story out before going to print.

I agree that it is shocking when a woman loses the power to narrate her own life.

It's equally shocking whether the excuse is national security or feminist politics.

Plame was shocked at the way nuanced, complex truths were being steamrollered by ideology on the inevitable road to war.

First she looks down on people for being weak, then she complains about people stronger than her crushing her weak little nuances beneath their steamroller of strength.

If you look down on people for being weaker than you believe yourself to be, then you're not allowed to complain when you get steamrollered by people who are stronger than you really are.

Rebecca, when you're not trashing celebrities, you're an excellent writer. This is a fine review.

I am happy that he came to LA and met with Latino leaders. I'm really upset about this ethnic cleansing fad that's overtaken local gang-on-gang politics. It's good that he came and met with Latino community leaders, because this ethnic strife concerns mainly black and Latino gangs. So it's important that people see that Obama is sensitive to Latino concerns.

This new racially separatist style of gang warfare has emerged thanks in large part to our state prison guards, who not only encourage but literally require the inmates to practice racial separatism, because it makes the task of guarding the overcrowded prisons much easier.

This new trend in gang racism has to be nipped in the bud ASAP.

I hope we manage to break out of this historical pattern, established by others before us, of dealing with Afghanistan's problems by driving them into northern Pakistan.